of these, and the author, no less than Divine, cannot but justify the forms, though set, determined and prescribed. 85. In a just proportion and commensuration, I argue so concerning the primitive and ancient forms of church-service, which are composed according to those so excellent patterns, which if they had remained pure, as in the first institution, or had always been as they had been reformed by the church of England, they would, against all defiance, put in for the next place to those forms of liturgy, which, mutatis mutandis,' are nothing but the words of Scripture. But I am resolved, at this present, not to enter into question concerning the matter of prayers. 86. Next, we must inquire what the apostles did, in obedience to the precept of Christ, and what the church did, in imitation of the apostles. That the apostles did use the prayer their Lord taught them, I think need not much be questioned; they could have no other end of their desire, and it had been a strange boldness to ask for a form which they intended not to use, or a strange levity not to do what they intended. But I consider they had a double capacity, they were of the Jewish religion by education, and now Christians by a new institution; in the first capacity, they used those set forms of prayer, which their nation used in their devotions. Christ and his apostles sang a hymn, part of the great allelujah", which was usually sung at the end of the paschal supper: "After the supper they sang a hymn," says the evangelist. The Jews also used, every sabbath, to sing the 92d psalm, which is therefore entitled, 'A song or psalm for the sabbath;' and they who observed the hours of prayer, and vows, according to the rites of the temple, need not be suspected to have omitted the Jewish forms of prayer. And as they complied with the religious customs of the nation, worshipping according to the Jewish manner, it is also in reason to be presumed, they were worshippers according to the new Christian institution, and used that form their Lord taught them. ༔ 87. Now, that they tied themselves to recitation of the very words of Christ's prayer pro loco et tempore,' I am therefore easy to believe, because I find they were "Vid. Scalig. de emend. tempor. de Judeor. mag. Allelujah. strict, to a scruple, in retaining the sacramental words which Christ spake, when he instituted the blessed sacrament, insomuch that not only three evangelists, but St. Paul also, not only making a narrative of the institution, but teaching the Corinthians the manner of its celebration, to a tittle he recites the words of Christ. Now the action of the consecrator is not a theatrical representment of the action of Christ, but a sacred, solemn, and sacramental prayer*, in which, since the apostles at first, and the church ever after did, with reverence, and fear, retain the very words, it is not only a probation of the question in general, in behalf of set forms; but also a high probability that they retained the Lord's prayer, and used it to an iara, in the very form of words. 88. And I the rather make the inference from the preceding argument, because of the cognation one hath with the other; for the apostle did also, in the consecration of the eucharist, use the Lord's prayer; and that, together with the words of institution, was the only form of consecration, saith St. Gregoryy; and St. Jerome affirms, that the apostles, by the command of their Lord, used this prayer- in the benediction of the elements. 89. But besides this, when the apostles had received great measures of the Spirit, and, by their gift of prayer, composed more forms for the help and comfort of the church, and contrary to the order in the first creation, the light which was in the body of the sun, was now diffused over the face of the new heavens, and the new earth; it became a precept evangelical, that we should praise' God in hymns and psalms, Imò totus canon consecrationis tam similis est et ferè idem in verbis apud Græcos, Latinos, Arabas, Armenios, Syros, Ægyptios, Æthiopes, ut nisi à communi fonte, qui nisi apostolorum non est, manare non potuerit. Unde intelligi datur (quia multum erat, ut in epistolâ, notum illum agendi ordinem insinuaret, quem universa per orbem servat ecclesia) ab ipso ordinatum esse, quod nullâ morum diversitate variatur. S. Aug. ep. 118. Greg. 1. 7. ep. 63. Hier. lib. contr. Pelag. Eligo in his verbis hoc intelligere, quod omnis, vel penè omnis frequentat ecclesia, ut precationes accipiamus dictas, quas facimus in celebratione sacramentorum, antequam illud, quod est in Domini mensa, incipiat benedici; orationes cum benedicitur, et ad distribuendum comminuitur; quam totam orationem, penè omnis ecclesia Dominicâ oratione concludit. S. Aug. ep. 59. q. 5. ad illud Pauli, obsecro primum omnium fieri obsecrationes.' and spiritual songs", which is so certain, that they were compositions of industry and deliberation, and yet were sung in the spirit, that he, who denies the last, speaks against Scriptures, he who denies the first, speaks against reason, and would best confute himself, if in the highest of his pretence of the Spirit, he would venture at some extempore hymns. And of this, we have the express testimony of St. Austin; "de hymnis et psalmis canendis haberi Domini et apostolorum documenta, et utilia præcepta." And the church obeyed them; for as an ancient author, under the name of Dionysius Areopagita, relates, the chief of the clerical and ministering order, offer bread upon the altar, "Cum ecclesiastici omnes laudem hymnumque generalem Deo tribuerunt, cum quibus pontifex sacras preces ritè perficit," &c. "They all sing one hymn to God, and the bishop prays 'ritè,' according to the ritual or constitution,”—which in no sense of the church, or of grammar, can be understood without a solemn and determined form; iuvev, says Casaubon, is 'cantare, idem sæpiùs dicere, apud Græcos annoyiac; they were forms of praising God, used constantly, periodically, and in the daily offices. And the fathers of the council of Antioch complain against Paulus Samosatenus, “Quod psalmos et cantus, qui ad Domini nostri Jesu Christi honorem decantari solent, tanquam recentiores, et à viris recentioris memoriæ editos exploserit:" "The quarrel was, that he said the church had used to say hymns which were made by new men, and not derived from the ancients";" which, if we consider that the council of Antioch was in the twelfth year of Gallienus, the emperor, one hundred and thirtythree years after Christ's ascension, will fairly prove, that the use of prescribed forms of prayer, hymns, and forms of worshipping, were very early in the church; and it is unimaginable it should be otherwise, when we remember the apostolical precept before mentioned. And if we fancy a higher precedent, than what was manifested upon earth, we may please to see one observed to have been made in heaven; for a set form of worship, and address to God, was recorded by St. John, and sung in heaven; and it was composed out of Epist. 119. c. 18. Col. iii. 16. the songs of Moses, of Davids, and of Jeremy, which certainly is a very good precedent for us to imitate, although but revealed by St. John, by way of vision and ecstasy, that we may see, if we would speak with the tongue of men and angels, we could not praise God in better forms, than what are recorded in holy Scripture. 90. But besides the metrical part, the apostle hath described other parts of liturgy in Scripture, whose composition, though it be in determined forms of words, yet not so bound up with numbers, as hymns: and these St. Paul calls supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks,' which are several manners of address distinguished by their subject matter, by their form and manner of address. As appears plainly by intercessions and giving of thanks;' the other are also by all men distinguished, though in the particular assignment they differ; but the distinction of the words implies the distinction of offices, which together with the τὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν προφήτων, the 'lectionarium of the church, the books of the apostles and prophets, spoken of by Justin Martyr, and said to be used in the Christian congregations, are the constituent parts of liturgy; and the exposition of the words we best learn from the practice of the church, who in all ages, of whose public offices any record is left to us, took their pattern from these places of Scripture, the one for prose, the other for verse; and if we take liturgy into its several parts, or members, we cannot want something to apply to every one of the words of St. Paul, in these present allegations 1. 91. For the offices of prose we find but small mention of them in the very first time, save only in general terms, and that such there were, and that St. James, St. Mark, St. Peter, and others of the apostles and apostolical men, made liturgies; and if these which we have at this day, were not theirs, yet they make probation that these apostles left others, or else they were impudent people that prefixed their names so early, and the churches were very incurious Exod. xv. 5 Psalm cxlv. h Chap. x. 6, 7. * Δέησις, παράκλησις, ἡ χρεία. Εντευξις, ἀπάντησις κατὰ τῶν πλημμελησάντων· δέησις εἰς ἐκδίκησιν. Εὔχεσθαι, ἱκετεύειν, καυχᾶσθαι, αὔχειν, λέγειν. Ικετήσιος ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν ἱκετῶν Zeùs, ĥ ô tôùs inétaç iλev. Hesych. vide S. August, ep. 59. q. 5. in hunc locum : descripsi verba ad sect. 86, to swallow such a bole, if no pretension could have been reasonably made for their justification. But concerning church hymns, we have clearer testimony in particular, both because there were many of them, and because they were dispersed more, soon got by heart, passed also among the people, and were pious arts of the Spirit, whereby holy things were instilled into their souls by the help of fancy, and a more easy memory. The first civilizing of the people used to be by poetry, and their divinity was conveyed by songs and verses; and the apostle exhorted the Christians, 'To exhort one another in psalms and hymns,' for he knew the excellent advantages were likely to accrue to religion by such an insinuation of the mysteries. Thus St. Hilary and St. Ambrose composed hymns for the use of the church, and St. Austin made a hymn against the schism of Donatus; which hymns, when they were publicly allowed of, were used in public offices; not till then; for Paulus Samosatenus had brought women into the church to sing vain and trifling songs, and some bishops took to themselves too great and incurious a license, and brought hymns into the church, whose gravity and piety was not very remarkable; upon occasion of which, the fathers of the council of Laodicea ordained, ὅτι οὐ δεῖ ἰδιωτικοὺς ψαλμοὺς λέγεσθαι ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, “ Νο psalms of private composition must be brought into the church;" so Gentian Harvet renders it; Isidore translates it "Psalmos ab idiotis compositos," "Psalms made by common persons."—" Psalms usually sung abroad," so Dionysius Exiguus calls them, "Psalmos plebeios:" but I suppose by the following words is meant, that none but Scripture psalms shall be read there; for so the canon adds, årrà μóva tà κανονικὰ τῆς παλαιᾶς καὶ καινῆς διαθήκης, “ Nothing to be read in the church but books of the Old and New Testament."-And this interpretation agrees well enough with the occasion of the canon which I now mentioned. σε 92. This only by the way, the reddition of faruous idiaTinous by Isidore, to be ' psalms made by common persons,' whom the Scripture calls idiáras, ignorant or unlearned,' is agreeable enough with that of St. Paul, who intimates, that Ut quisque de Scripturis sanctis, vel de proprio ingenio potest, provocatur in medium Deo canere. Tertul. Apolog. |